Government

In a petition started Monday, the Ditch Plains Association is gathering signatures to “urgently appeal to the East Hampton Town Board to take immediate and decisive action to address the critical loss of the protective dune . . . a consequence of two recent coastal storms.”

In the cross hairs of Adam Potter's plans for a large mixed-use building in downtown Sag Harbor Village are four structures that contribute to the village's historic distrct and, according to the village code, are not to be removed.

“Now is the hard moment,” East Hampton Town’s planning director told the town board during an assessment of a ravaged coastline after three storms in the past month, as mobilization for the downtown Montauk portion of the long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point beach renourishment project was getting underway.

The Mill Hill Realty Corporation was in front of the East Hampton Village Design Review Board again this week with plans for its Toilsome Farms Restaurant and Brewery. Dubbed a “beer hall” by neighbors who oppose it, an owner described the proposed business as “a restaurant, not a rowdy party scene.”

The East Hampton Town Board has set Feb. 1 as a tentative date to decide whether to exempt the proposed new senior citizens center, to be constructed on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett, from the town’s zoning and land-use procedures.

Ahead of dropping temperatures expected to freeze the rain and slush left by Tuesday's inclement weather, a majority of schools in East Hampton and Southampton Towns have announced delayed openings for Wednesday. East Hampton Town government offices will open two hours later on Wednesday.

Clearing and other site activity for Cantwell Court, the planned affordable-housing subdivision at 395 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, is to begin as soon as next week.

The East Hampton Town Board’s liaison assignments for 2024 were announced on Tuesday, with the supervisor and four councilmembers assigned to each of the hamlets and their citizens advisory committees as well as town departments. Other assignments were to the All Hands on Housing initiative to create affordable housing for residents, key projects, various boards, and citizens and internal committees. 

Tuesday, Jan. 23, will be the day for East Hampton Town residents to purchase village beach parking permits, a week before they go on sale to the general public.

In papers filed with Suffolk County Supreme Court on Jan. 2, the East Hampton Village attorney said a petition filed by the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association claiming that the village had improperly transferred an ambulance service certificate away from the association, an independent nonprofit, and taken over its bank account, was a “slapdash effort” and a “frivolous filing” that shouldn’t be heard by the court.

Mobilization for the Montauk portion of the 83-mile-long Fire Island to Montauk Point beach renourishment project is to begin Thursday, with temporary road closures to allow mobilization of very large equipment including bulldozers and 35-foot lengths of piping. Beach infill is to begin next month, when an offshore dredge will pump 80,000 cubic yards of sand a day onto the downtown beach.

The East Hampton Town Board came under sharp questioning from residents during last Thursday’s public hearing on the possible exemption of the new senior citizens center from the town’s zoning code and land-use procedures.

Construction began this week on broken roof trusses at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street, where East Hampton Village has held its public meetings for decades.

The founder of a group that promotes fitness and the outdoors urged the Sag Harbor Village Board on Tuesday to improve the community’s access to its surrounding waterways.

The trustees re-elected Francis Bock to the position of clerk, or presiding officer, and Jim Grimes and Bill Taylor as deputy clerks. They also honored Susan McGraw Keber, who served three terms as a trustee until her retirement at the end of 2023.

Ian Calder-Piedmonte, vice chairman of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, liaison to the town’s agricultural advisory committee, and a co-owner of Balsam Farms in East Hampton and Amagansett, has been appointed to fill the seat on the town board that was vacated by Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez when she became supervisor at the start of this year.

Along with the new town supervisor, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, new Councilman Tom Flight, and the incumbent Councilman David Lys, a new town justice and new members of the planning, zoning, and architectural review boards were sworn in this week.

In a move that has the potential to change how Town Hall operates for years to come, the East Hampton Town Board has appointed the first town administrator, whose responsibilities will range from overseeing staff in the supervisor’s office to preparing the annual operating budget.

At a time when East Hampton Town faces “many challenges,” Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez was sworn in at the town board’s organizational meeting on Tuesday and began to implement changes at Town Hall and to set priorities for the coming year. 

East Hampton Town will have a town administrator for the first time, there will be new members appointed to the planning board, zoning board of appeals, and architectural review board, and a new chairman for the A.R.B. in 2024. 

Work continues this month on a $1 million New York State effort to prevent wildfire spread at Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks in Amagansett and Montauk.

Coast Guard Station Montauk will soon be without its 87-foot cutter, Bonito, it was revealed at the town board’s Dec. 19 meeting. A personnel shortage is blamed.

Forty years after moving to East Hampton Town and more than 20 years after starting a journey in public service that has now reached its conclusion, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby reflected this month on her tenure on the town board, the planning board, and, prior to those, the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee.

Randy Parsons was first elected to the East Hampton Town Board in 1979, when the population of East Hampton was only 14,000; he will be leaving the planning board, on which he has served for the last seven years, on Dec. 31, and when he leaves, a great deal of institutional knowledge leaves with him.

After three terms as East Hampton Town supervisor, two as town councilman, and tenures on both the planning board and zoning board of appeals, Peter Van Scoyoc is leaving Town Hall. It has been an improbable path for the onetime owner of a construction company, he said, “and yet circumstances arose, and I felt compelled and called to serve.”

At the East Hampton Town Board’s final meeting of 2023, there were fond farewells upon the retirement of Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, and a proclamation for Rebecca Morgan Taylor, the executive director of Project Most, recognizing her nearly two decades of service to the children and families of the town.

The plan to remove invasive vegetative species at the Benson reserve in Montauk, which calls for the use of 12 to 15 goats as well as machinery, has split residents of the hamlet. With that in mind, the East Hampton Town Board held another substantial discussion of the proposal.

The East Hampton Village Board is considering using cameras on village roads that would photograph license plates of speeding vehicles and generate either a ticket or a warning that would be mailed to the vehicle’s owner.

Even though clearing for the new East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett is to begin next month, its design, features, and cost have been drawing scrutiny; and, now, potential zoning exemptions for the project are being debated, too.

Aidan Corish and Bob Plumb were spooked by draft legislation introduced before an affordable housing workshop that would create an Affordable Workforce Housing Zoning District “floating zone,” with one calling it “a powerful and potentially damaging tool.”